To mark her many great screen accomplishments – not to mention the influence she exerted on independent people in her lifetime – LIFE.com presents 29 photos of the iconoclast on location for her classic 1951 movie with Humphrey Bogart, director John Huston's The African Queen.

Over time, the characters behind the camera seem to have become more fascinating than those before it, but to recap: the movie is a down-river adventure pairing Charlie Allnutt (Bogie), a disheveled trader with a boat to match (The African Queen), and Rose Sayer (Hepburn), an English spinster missionary. (Director Huston told her to play the role as though she were Eleanor Roosevelt.) And, yes, this mismatched couple fall in love.

In the John Huston boxing drama, which also starred Jeff Bridges and Stacy Keach, Tyrell, then 26, played Oma, a falling-down drunk. She later said that although Huston wanted to cast Faye Dunaway in the role, Tyrrell convinced the director to give her the job because a 26-year-old drunk would be more interesting than a 35-year-old one.